Chibikart: step-by-step lets you build your own tiny-wheel racer

Now the rant calls this an unobtainium-free sibling to the Chibikart. We’re sad to report that the unobtainium he’s talking about are the hyper-awesome hand-wound hub motors that powered the original kart which left us dumbstruck after seeing it for the first time. But look, few mortals have the skills and tools necessary to manufacture those circular marvels of modern engineering.

So you’ll just need to settle for stuff you can buy to assemble the tiny kart seen here. It’s all-electric, using two DC motors to power the rear wheels. You can catch it racing around the hallways in the video after the break. The only thing we can see missing from the equation (other than red shells and the like) is a helmet and bumpers (you’ll see why at the end of the clip).

I think the extremely small inertia would render regenerative braking pretty much useless. Everybody’s talking about it, but nobody considers the amount of work required to make a charging system… it’s not as simple as “reverse the polarity” – plus I think they’re enjoying coasting through corners and hitting one another.